The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-04-10
OF INTEREST TO WOMEN.
Every Woman Her Own Dress Reformer-Im-
portant Changes in Costumes.

Correspondence of the Indianapolis Journal.
New YORK, April s.-"Do the dress reformers
make any approaches to the Bazars' repeated
Miss Mary L. Booth, few days before she left
her sanctum at Harpers for the trip abroad on
which she sailed yesterday. Certainly they
make approaches enough, but can't say they
have left any tangible impression. don't see.
indeed. what the dress reformer wants." and the
busy editor dropped handful of papers and
wheeled about to face the ouestioner.
Can any body point out single department
of social economy in which a greater advance
has been made in the last twenty five years,
in which common sense has come nearer to
gaining solid footing than in the dress of wom-
emf Look at boots. with their thick soles
and broad low heels, ard compare them with the
paper slippers OF our grandmothers Think of
the low necks and short sleeves which they dis
played in all weathers and at all hours Of the
day, and which we have reegated to the even
ing and to fulldress occasions. How much, by
actual measure, do you suppose the average
waist has expanded in two or three generatious2
1t has grown from thirteen or fourteen-inch
span, like Richard sons Pamela. whom her lover
could clasp with his two hands, to substantial
girth of twenty-four or twenty-five inches.
Doesn't the dress reformer know that the
fashion of to-day is that there isn't any fashion
at ala Individuality is the fashion. Whatever
you choose to wear, that within certain very
elastic limits you can wear. and be as much in
the mode as your neighbour. Fashion doesn't call
for anything that you don't choose to put on
The more Of your own mind, your own taste,
your own whims, your own caprice that you can
put into your clothes, the more successfully
dressed you are. The ono woman who, above
all others, is not in the prevailing style is the
woman who is enSlavod to a model
Does anybody suppose that fashion requires
corsets2 Fashion doesn't care, SO long as you
have the art to make yourself acceptable to the
eye whether there Is single steel or the ghost
of a whalebone in your bodice. Is it fashion
that axes sine qua non of the tournurea Not
bit of it. Press your draperies fiat you
like. If women choose to jump like flock of
sheep, one after another, over wall, it is their
fancy in athletics That is not fashion.
Fashion at present rather smiles on brains. For
the daylight toilet. at least, nobody need make
a martyr of herself with single article of APP
parel that is not hygienic. and the woman who
suffers is bringing the woes on herself, not obey
ing Mrs. Grundy's will.
THE standard age at which little New York
ers put on their stays is eight years." said a
woman physician in busy practice to whom 1
submitted Miss Booths view of the rrepressble
clothes question the same afternoon. Call it
Dame Fashion or call it Dame Folly, the results
are much the same in the long to Ask
any dry goods dealer and he will tell you that
he never sold corsets for babies so young or
women SO old before. The stay habit is spread
ing at both ends of life. and directly or indi-
rectly two-thirds of my patients come to me
| through the dress-makers' thrall."
asked Miss Bertha Won Hillern as found
| her packing her trunks for sketchng tour in
| California, the other day, what sort of apparel
she found most convenient and practicable for
| an active woman living an QUITO door life For
answer she showed me her outfit for some
months roughine it on foot; a lightweight blue
| flannel garb with blouse waist loosely belted,
short skirt and orapery sufficient to acknowl-
edge a bowling acquaintance with the conven-
tionalities. Soft loose shoes and a wide felt hat
completed toilet that the face of it
comfortable and eminently suited to the uses to
which it was to be put.
saw it on Broadway for the first time yes
| terday, floral muff unabashed and unashamed;
lilies of the valley just out of the greenhouse
! woven together in the oldest and most intricate
| of nests that ever held lace handkerchief or
a change purse, and pansies nodding in the April
| wind. 1t was curious notion, and more than
| one pair of eyes followed its triumphal course.
| The muff received their homage with composure;
| it enjoyed the brief browning minute of its ca
| reer. 1t was alone of its sort in the big city,
! but tomorrow its imitators will be counted by
scores. The flower muff withers, and its brief
joys fade. 1t is not a very serviceable piece of
apparel, but Lent has been long and anything
for a whim ELIZA p HEAToN.